At first reading the Song of Songs appears to be an unabashed celebration of the deeply rooted urges of physical attraction, mutual love and sexual consummation between a man and a woman.

Tom Gledhill maintains that the Song of Songs is in fact just that--a literary, poetic exploration of human love that strongly affirms loyalty, beauty and sexuality in all their variety. With tender metaphor and extravagant imagery, the Song writer spins a tale of human love into the cadence of verse, innocent of our quest for historical persons behind the text.

But in God's story, human beauty, intimacy and sexuality are not ends in themselves. They are transencedental longings, whispers of immortality. Like all of creation they point beyond themselves to their divine author, who in this Song is nowhere mentioned but everywhere assumed.

Gledhill's commentary is a refreshing reminder of the Song of Song's ancient and vibrant affirmation of human sexuality that forms an interlude in the Old Testament story and echoes between the lines of Christian revelation.

About the Bible Speaks Today (BST) Series:

Edited by J.A. Motyer and the late John R. W. Stott, the Bible Speaks Today commentaries are characterized by what Stott called a "threefold ideal . . . to expound the biblical text with accuracy, to relate it to contemporary life and to be readable." As such, each contributor in this series is both a noted scholar and a working pastor.

The BST series, now complete, covers all sixty-six books of the bible (Old and New Testaments) in fifty-five volumes. If you preach or teach from Scripture, the Bible Speaks Today series will help you apply the timeless biblical message to the everyday experiences of your listeners. And if you study the Bible on your own, these volumes will be a helpful resource focusing on the significance of God's Word for your own life and work.